


There is no currency for retribution, nor for love.

by apeirophobia



Category: Need for Speed (Movie 2014)
Genre: Gen, Implied Mpreg, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Unorthodox parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 08:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2262990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apeirophobia/pseuds/apeirophobia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the past two years Finn has withdrawn from his old life and the east coast, avoiding his sister and his parents in an attempt to distance himself and his daughter from Dino and the events surrounding Pete's death. When Tobey drags him into his race for revenge in Pete's name, Finn has to face the man who derailed his life, answer for trespasses his sister thinks he committed, and try to protect his daughter from the dark secrets he's been keeping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the unpredictability of honest men (more or less)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freedomworm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freedomworm/gifts), [Hyx_Sydin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyx_Sydin/gifts).



> Hi guys! I decided to 'gift' my fic to you as a little thank-you for getting this fandom started, hope you don't mind!

 

At a quarter past ten, Finn's phone rings for the third time and he knows. He knows he's going to fold (like the rest of the crew want) and he knows Tobey is going to win (win him over and win the race). He's known this was going to happen, has since Joe called him this morning to say good morning to Evie and told him Tobey was on route. And just...fuck Tobey. Fuck _Dino_. And fuck that Mustang for dipping when it lurched away from the curb. Dipping _enticingly_ and dragging him out of his oh-so-safe routine and his _job_  because once the perfectionist-mechanic part of his brain is turned on it can't be turned off (it was easy enough to turn it off after Pete died, when everything was numb and chaotic, but it still took six months before working in a non-dirty, non-loud, and non-garage job felt anything but foreign). 

 

And as annoying as Tobey knowing and exploiting his predictably fastidious attention to detail tendencies is, it's the wake-up call that he needs. He's been hiding in this job, in this city, for long enough and it's time for him to take back his life. Pete and Tobey deserve justice, Anita and Joe deserve the _truth_ , and Finn, well, Finn deserves to reimburse Dino for some small fraction of the pain the latter has caused him. He doesn't remember everything, (the doctor who set his right wrist said that head injuries mixed with pain meds were a recipe for short-term memory loss) but he remembers blood on concrete and that obnoxious cologne Dino always wears. He remembers how he got the pink diagonal scar above his left temple. He remembers _enough_.

 

He leans against the window, staring down at two of his stupidest--and closest--friends, and thinks _I_ _can get another job, but Tobey can't get a better opportunity for justice._

 

His shirt is halfway off before he realized he'd made up his mind.

 

* * *

 

Finn is excessively responsible 95% of the time. He balances this out by being ridiculously impulsive the other 5%. Running naked through the lobby of his former employer and tackling his best friend might just qualify as the latter.

 

"Dude, I was not expecting this!" Joe says, looking mildly offended at the notion that he underestimated Finn's insanity, "I didn't know you and Evelyn were going to hit the 'taking one's clothes off in public' stage  _at the same time,_ " he says, but he's laughing as he waves his jacket at Finn imploringly.

 

Finn just grins like a Cheshire while Joe blushes. Tobey and Benny were so sure he'd come around, so certain he was a sure thing, and he likes to still be a little unpredictable. Flustering Joe is just a bonus.

 

Finn wraps Joe's jacket around his waist as the girl at the front desk looks on like this might be the most entertaining display she's seen in all her twenty-two years.

 

"Is Evelyn Peck signed out of the daycare center?" Finn asks the girl, Violet, in as professional a tone as one can manage while wearing only a makeshift kilt and a pair of brightly colored striped socks.

 

"Oh yeah," she says with a smile, "Mr. Peck took care of that, you're good to go,"

 

"I told her we're going on a road trip," Joe says as they step out onto the sunlight, and Finn is glad to see that Joe has parked the Beast right outside because running around a bank building nude on a lark is one thing, but running around Detroit naked is quite another.

 

"Oh yeah," Finn says with a laugh, catching the pile of clothes Joe tosses his way, "and what did she say to that?"

 

"She didn't _say_ anything, she just smiled and made the sign for 'party'. Apparently she was on board before you were."

 

* * *

 

Once he's pulled on some jeans and a shirt, Finn climbs into the backseat of the Beast to fuss over Evelyn's car seat buckles and make sure all the placement straps are secure. He makes it no secret that he is the "worrier" parent, Joe is infinitely more laid-back, but it's a badge he wears with pride. He gives the same detailed care to the pros and cons of organic baby food, or critiquing whether Baby Einstein is critical to a bright child's early development, or whether it's too visually stimulating for an infant that can't even see primary colors yet, that he would give to fine-tuning a 6-figure racecar engine. Joe is more of a "no harm done" parenting type: often letting Evelyn explore on her own terms, and only really drawing the line when she tries to put anything extremely dirty, dangerous, or alive in her mouth (which she does regularly, to the disgruntlement of the frogs at the local park). Both of their tendencies work to Evelyn's benefit, and instead of conflicting in their ideologies they balanced each other nicely.

 

"I have done this before," Joe says placidly, idling the engine while he sipped his coffee and watched the aerial video of Tobey's audition with amusement.

 

"You know I still have to check them myself, it's a soothing ritual for my own peace of mind," Finn says back as sirens wail in the not-too-distance and Benny crows something over the radio.

 

"OCD." Joe stage-whispers not-quite under his breath.

 

Evie hums happily at Finn and kicks her feet lightly while Finn gets her situated. He tucks her car blanket in alongside her and hands her her favorite stuffed rabbit from the baby bag Joe packed for the trip.

 

"You ready to hit the road?" he says, his voice taking on the softer pitch it always does when he talks to his daughter.

 

"Yeah!" Evelyn says with a smile, black curls bouncing as she nods her head enthusiastically.

 

"Yeah?" Finn echoes, "You excited about finally getting to meet Uncle Tobey and seeing Uncle Benny again?" he asks, and Evie nods again. It hurt sometimes, to think about, how Pete would have loved to be an Uncle, and Finn kicks himself for not managing to tell him when he had the chance. There is so much that Finn knows he would hate to be missing out on. Anita, on the other hand, has only seen Evelyn twice, three times if you count her visit to the hospital when Evelyn was born, and her relationship as Evie's only Aunt is a stilted one.

 

She sent a gift for Evie's first birthday (an adorable romper set, even if it wasn't the right size, and Finn's known Anita long enough to know when she's being passive-aggressive) instead of visiting in person like their parents did. Finn was torn between hurt, hurt at the notion that Anita would rather stay in New York than visit her precious and extremely charming niece (and, hey, Finn might not be the least bit objective, but he's never pretended to be), and relief that she didn't _want_ to come, because if she had she might have wanted to bring Dino. But then, not two months later, there was an ivory envelope in the mail, the letter inside inviting him "with pleasure" to "celebrate our upcoming nuptials" and suddenly, somehow, his  _sister_ was going to marry the man who'd caused their  _brother's_ death, was planning on spending the rest of her life with a man who'd once hit Finn so hard four surgical staples were needed to close the laceration on the side of his head. Not that he'd ever told her, not even when she'd fussed over him after the funeral ( _oh Finnegan, what happened to you?_  she'd said, brushing her fingers over the bare spot where his hair hadn't grown back yet), and how could he? Tell her that he'd gotten it at the metal end of her fiance's belt?

 

If she believed him she'd leave Dino in a heartbeat, he knew that. What kept him from telling her was the fear that she wouldn't. The fear that she would take Dino's version of events over his own (even though he can not imagine  _how_ Dino could spin the story in his own favor), like she'd done with Tobey after Pete's death. It was the fear that she'd call him a liar, that she'd hate him. Tobey was her first boyfriend, and Pete was blood, so what chance did Finn have? He was just her foster-brother with whom she was currently pissed off. But then, what did he have to lose? He was going to lose her anyway if she married Dino.

 

Which indirectly led him to his current predicament. Because Lord knows engaging on a cross-country road trip to aid one of your oldest friends in a ploy to incarcerate your sister's fiance' is easier than talking to your family. Really, it goes without saying.

 

Evelyn lets out a little squeak of distress, breaking him from his thoughts. "Sorry sweetheart," he says, realizing he was lost in less-than-pleasant thoughts.

 

"Daddy was lost in space," he says softly, tracing along the warm line of her jaw before booping her on the nose, winning him a smile.

 

Evie fixes him with as serious a look as any adorable fifteen-month-old is capable of, "Va-room?" she asks.

 

"Va-room," he agrees, smiling.

 

* * *

 

Evelyn passes out an hour into their trip after babbling animatedly about her morning at daycare. She has a fairly big vocabulary for a fifteen-month-old, sixteen words (a fact that Joe brags about whenever the opportunity presents itself), and what she doesn't know she makes up. She can also sign ten basic commands but she usually only uses them with Finn and Joe. The last time Benny visited he tried to teach her morse code but Evelyn just thought he was playing a game with her and kept grabbing his hands and giggling every time he tried to tap out her name.

 

Finn just hopes she sleeps until they reach the meet-up point, that way she can get out of the truck and run all her energy out. She's a hyper little thing, even more when she's wired (which she totally will be, since she's totally fucking up her nap schedule by snoozing now), and Finn is the first to admit that she got her high-strung nature from him. He  was diagnosed with ADD back in his second year of middle school and only escaped school-mandated medication because Mrs. Coleman went to bat for him against a very ablest Director of Student Services. But even amongst his less dopamine-challenged brethren, only Joe can pass for what others would consider "calm". Tobey especially has a tenacity for excess in his actions and his emotions, it's one of the things that makes him such a great driver, that doesn't seem to be dampened by his time in prison. Finn would almost feel sorry for Julia--he imagines it must be exhausting for a newcomer (not so much to racing, but to their crew) to spend several hours in a 'supped-up Mustang with that amount of intensity--but something tells him she can handle it.

 

He's looking forward to seeing Tobey again in person. The last time he saw his friend was at the funeral and that isn't a fond memory for any of them. He looks different on the vid-feed than Finn remembers him, subtly so, less light, a little more worn, but he sounded the same on the phone, the same Tobey he met at a summer party, in a muddy field, starting-or finishing-a fight (Tobey tells it differently every time) when he was thirteen because, according to Pete, he just _had_ to meet the cool older kid he'd recently befriended. And since then Tobey has always been a permanent part of his life. They were always close, Tobey and Pete, in a way no one else in the crew, even Finn and Pete, were. He and Pete were brothers, like getting the flu together and hitting each other with pillows during Saturday morning cartoons commercial breaks and accidentally staining the butcher block teal when they broke a mug while dying Easter eggs one year, but Tobey and Pete were _brothers_ with their matching tattoos and their shared sense of humor and both of them being racers. Tobey was the big brother Finn-being only thirteen months older than Pete-couldn't be, and he could get into R-rated movies and give advice on girls and, possibly coolest of all, their parents trusted him to take them to races and get them home in one piece. He was a natural addition to their family. And when Tobey started dating Anita in high school it seemed like that meant one day he would officially join their family and how cool would that be?

 

Finn watches Michigan disappear behind them as they speed down I-94. They'll be coming up on Tobey's route soon, and they're going to attempt a fuel-up when they cross over. Apparently he's been thinking too loud because Joe asks "How's it going?", looking over at him and putting Benny's channel on mute.

 

"Anita's mad at us for not going to her engagement party," Finn says, not even realizing it was on his mind until he said it aloud, "And by 'us' I mean _me_. She might have invited us both, but she blames me for our absence."

 

Joe nodded sympathetically--he couldn't imagine having to regularly navigate a landmine like Dino just to see his family--before grinning sardonically, "She should just be glad you didn't write the colorful reply on the R.S.V.P. card that you really wanted to,"

 

Finn laughed, "You should have let me send it like that, I thought I got my point across fairly eloquently."

 

"Dude, just because something is written in cursive doesn't make it eloquent. I'm pretty sure 90% of that note was just different versions of the f-word," Joe says, poking Finn in the shoulder with his sunglasses for emphasis.

 

"Please, it was only like 89," Finn says mock-seriously, and Joe grins, genuinely this time.

 

"You ready for this?" Joe says, changing subjects, and Finn's not sure which "this" he means; whether he's asking if Finn's ready for the adrenaline rush of hanging off the side of the Beast, or whether he's talking about bringing down Dino, or something else entirely. Sometimes Joe can be criminally vague.

 

"This?" Finn asks, raising an eyebrow in question.

 

"You know, to get your life back?" Joe asks, and the three separate trains of thought in Finn's head momentarily pause.  _Ready_ is such a silly, useless term. No one is ever "ready" for anything. At least not Finn.

 

Finn looks at Evelyn sleeping peacefully in the back seat, as oblivious to the complexities of her extended family as she is unconscious, and-faking nonchalance-says "Absolutely,"

 


	2. some things are best left forgotten (and some others are better buried)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for reading and reviewing :] I apologize for the delay, here's a flashback chapter :)

 

The call comes at 7 in the evening, while Finn is revising a few of his clients' files. He's two authorization forms into Warren West's investment plan when his cell phone rings. It's not a number he recognizes, too many digits to be from within the states, but he answers it anyway in case it's a foreign customer who's been referred to him directly. He can hear splashing water and laughter filtering in from down the hall: Joe is giving Evie her nightly bath and she gets absolutely  _hysterical_ about bubbles. From the sounds of it Joe might be getting a bath as well.

 

When he presses 'answer' it takes him less than ten seconds to realize he made the wrong decision.

 

"Evening Finn," a lightly accented voice says, and that voice feels like cold air and concrete and Finn freezes. It's been nearly eighteen months since the funeral, long enough for life to move on and things to calm down and return to some semblance of normal. Life will never be exactly as it was (never as innocent, never as...safe) but slowly the loss of Pete has faded (faded, but never gone away, never will, not completely) to the point where it's not the first thing on Finn's mind when he wakes up in the morning. And if Pete isn't on his mind every moment these days, then Dino sure as hell doesn't deserve to be. Dino still takes up more space in his psyche than will ever be fair.

 

Finn can't speak for a moment, then he says, "What could you possibly want?"

 

Dino laughs, but it sounds forced, like he's attempting nonchalance but falling short, and says, "I just wanted to see how you were doing, can't I check up on family?" and Finn's stomach turns. There are many terms he could use to describe Dino, most of them consisting of the type of language neither he nor Joe allow in front of Evelyn, but "family" is not one of them.

 

"We are not family Dino," Finn finally spits out, forming words and _breathing_  suddenly seeming more difficult than it should, "We were never even friends."

 

There was a time, over the months he and the garage crew spent working on the Shelby, when Finn warmed considerably to Dino, to the point of thinking him a friend. He'd even come around to the idea of the older man one day being his and Pete's brother-in-law. In retrospect he realizes that Dino was just trying to erode his natural wariness and gain his trust, that his amicable nature had been nothing but a facade perpetrated for his own gain. _Why had he been so stupid?_ Tobey was a good judge of character when it mattered and Finn should have followed his lead, he sees that now. Finn knows he's not entirely to blame (or at least he tells himself he's not) for being caught particularly off-guard by Dino's true nature, Dino had tried the hardest to hide it from him. But that was  _before_ ,before Dino's intentions became clear, and Finn saw firsthand what he was capable of, now no such pretenses remain.

 

Dino makes a dismissive sound, "I remember it differently," and Finn can hear the smirk in his voice.

 

"Yeah," he bites back, "You remember it,  _period_." And he has to take a deep breath to regain his composure. The memories of the party, and the race before it, are spotty at best, the prongs of Dino's belt leaving grooves in his memories the way they left indentations in his flesh. Losing the events that led up to the attack in Dino's garage is just another thing that Dino has stolen, like his brother, like his former life.

 

And when Finn asks "Have you been drinking?" the answer is clearly  _yes_ because Dino sobers in demeanor immediately and changes tracks, asking, "Why didn't you tell anyone?"

 

Finn unconsciously runs his hand down the table before grasping the table edge tightly; this is not the conversation he was prepared for when he answered the phone (this is not a conversation he was  _ever_ prepared for). He should of been expecting it (the story of his fucking life, really) when he saw it was an international number, Dino is often over-seas on business (drinking himself into melancholy apparently). Finn hopes next time Dino skips the drunk-dial and drinks himself straight into a pair of razors and a warm bath.

 

"You see, it's your fault really, if you had put me away I wouldn't have been free to race Pete and Tobey on the bridge. Hell, I wouldn't be free to continue to date Anita. So really, Finn, where do you benefit from letting me see the light of day?" Dino continues scathingly, his voice dripping with accusation, and Finn closes his eyes and wants to turn away from hearing aloud all the worst things he's dared to think of himself, of his worst failings. Finn is not the confrontational sort, he is thoroughly middle-child in that regard, preferring to hedge his bets instead of leaving himself needlessly vulnerable. But this time he gambled wrong, and Pete paid the price.

 

"Fuck you," is Finn's incredibly thought-out response.

 

"Been there, done that," Dino says, but for such a low blow he sounds oddly apathetic about it (and possibly self-loathing?).

 

"I'm gonna go--," Finn says, done with Dino's bullshit and done with this conversation. The fact that Dino is trashed enough to think calling Finn was a _good idea_ means he probably won't even remember it in the morning (and isn't irony a wonderful, hideous, thing?), and Finn is not in the mood to be degraded, but Dino cuts him off before he can even lower the phone with an insistent, " _Why haven't you?_ "

 

"Pressed charges?" Finn hisses back, "Is this really the shit that keeps you up at night? Because--" _You didn't give a shit about me when you left me in that garage_ , he thinks. How does that make him feel? Good? Creeped out? _Vindicated_? Pissed that it's what Dino did to Finn, not what Dino did to _Pete_ , that is keeping him up? There are too many emotions in the world and Finn is tired of feeling them all.

 

"You could have  _killed_ me," Finn says finally, even though that's not what he meant to say at all, and he surprises himself at the venom in his words. He's angry, of course he's angry, but he's actually surprised at how much he still feels about  _everything_. He thought he was going to die because isn't that what happens when someone puts their hands around your neck? And he thought Dino meant to kill him, because how else was he planning on getting away with hurting one of Tobey's crew? But no, Dino let him live (an action which probably had more to do with Dino's endless arrogance than it did with the fact that Finn would rather take something to the grave than upset his parents) and face the challenge of putting his pieces back together again;  _let_ him live, like Finn's life was somehow his to give, "and I don't owe you anything."

 

Dino sighs at Finn's non-answer and Finn can practically smell the booze on Dino's breath. He hears the clink of glass on polished wood and wonders what Anita would think of her fiance' getting drunk in some European hotel. Anita can overlook a lot when she's in love. If she knew her fiance' was drinking himself to maudliness over his past misdeeds however... Finn looks at the clock over the stove and considers just hanging up.

 

"But why...would you do that, for me?" Dino asks, seeing Finn's actions only as they affect _him_ personally and misinterpreting  _I don't owe you_ _anything_ to not include a  _reason_ , but to mean "I  _didn't_ owe you anything" and thus furthering his confusion over what he perceives to be his own benefaction.

 

There were a million different reasons Finn didn't press charges at the time (because he didn't want to make it official, make it real; because he didn't want to be asked a thousand questions he didn't have the answers to, because he was scared), and now because he doesn't want someone to do the math and look at his daughter any differently (doesn't want anyone to ever look at her like she's any less than the best thing the 21st century has produced). A million reasons he called Joe instead of the police, he doesn't-for all that is holy and good-know why he tells Dino the truth.

 

"I don't know," he says, and he hates how his fucking voice cracks. He didn't know what to do, leaning against a car in Dino's garage, blood running down the side of his face and one wrist twisted at a bad angle. He wanted someone to rescue him. Anita and Pete were both out for various reasons, and he knew if he called Tobey the older man would get in a fight and then the police would get called anyway. He can't even remember  _calling_ Joe, just knows that his best friend was there when he woke up in the hospital, rings under his eyes, and looking paler than Finn had ever seen him. He doesn't know how his life got this complicated, just that it has. He's gotten to a point in his life where the idea of Dino living  _only_  600 miles away sometimes keeps him up at night. He has lied to nearly every person he loves. And he doesn't like those things, sometimes he doesn't even like himself, but he deals with them because he has to. Dino has taken a lot from him, but Finn will not let him take his (nearly illogical) will to survive.

 

Things would be easier if Pete was still alive, things would be easier if Finn could just say "screw Anita's feelings" and tell his mother what happened at Dino's party, and things would be easier if Dino had just _let go_ when Finn had asked him to. There are so many things that Finn wishes for, and so many things that are impossible. He made the best decision he felt was available at the time, and as an indirect consequences of that decision Dino is still out in the world, free to wander and wonder, and ( _apparently_ ) call him in the middle of the night and ask him why he made the fateful decision to not incarcerate him. It is ironic, and exhausting.

 

Finally Finn asks, "Dino, what the fuck is wrong with you?"

 

He starts to answer, but Finn suddenly can't take anymore and decides,  "Never mind, I don't want to hear the answer to that," and ends the call.

 

He can hear Evie, down the hall, laughing as she's lifted out of the bathtub. Her laugh is so sweet and clear, nothing like Dino's laugh at all. He closes the client file he had been working on earlier, slowly puts his head in his hands, and shakes.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are love! <3


End file.
